Since we are all students here at Plymouth I thought it would be cool to have everyone write about what they love to do here in Plymouth or surrounding towns. We are right in the heart of New Hampshire and have access to all the fun places in a relatively short distance. There are so many things to do and I don't think everyone is really aware of all the places to have fun at.

I have created a list of several hobbies of mine

1. Skiing/Tuckerman's Ravine

2. North Conway or Tilton

3. The Falls

4. Golfing

5. Wiffle Ball/Softball

6. Polish Horseshoes

7. Grilling

8. Common Man Restaurants/Spa/Inn

9. Hiking/Biking

10. Kayaking/Fishing

These are all things i love to do here in Plymouth or places to visit that aren't to far away and have a lot to offer. I am interested to see what others have to say about their favorite things in Plymouth.

I am an avid skier and although i prefer skiing out west at Mammoth, Vail and Breckenridge when i can. But I have a hard time deciding on the best mountain to ski at here in New England. I decide to ask the rest of you what your favorite mountains are and why?

Personally My favorite in New Hampshire would have to be Bretton Woods and Sunapee. I work as a ski instructor at a small place called McIntyre Ski Area in Manchester, NH and whenever parents of my students ask for good resorts I tell them Sunapee and Bretton Woods. Not so much for kids but as far as the best places in NH these would have to be my choices.

Bretton Woods is my favorite because first of all because of the scenery. Easily the most picturesque mountain in New Hampshire. It is located in the heart of the White Mountains right across from the beautiful Mount Washington Hotel. Bretton woods is two mountains in one and includes a huge glade area for tree skiers. The mountain is so large and the lifts so efficient that you never really notice lines. Especially when you head to the west mountain. Bretton is a terrific mountain especially with the scenery and the small but fun town of North Conway, NH.

Bretton Woods

Sunapee is a mountain that most people wouldn't think about as one of their favorite mountains but the more time i spend here, the more i like it. It isn't as large as the well known mountains but it is def worth your time. Sunapee is like the hidden jewel of the ski resorts in NH. There is plenty to do, glades, intermediate, expert trails and a park, Sunapee has it all. It is located in the western part of the state and no matter how busy it gets you really dont notice it because of the setup of the mountain.

Mount Sunapee

I encourage you allto post about your favorite resorts so that I can see what mountain i may be missing out on. Maybe you feel the same way about these mountains as i do or maybe not. Leave you comments and explain which are your favorites and why.

So I have Verizon wireless as my carrier and my EnV touch cell phone is up for an upgrade. So the other day i go into Best Buy (I have best buy's insurance on my Verizon phone because best buy insurance is better) and I start looking at phones that i may like. I like the HTC droid eris and the Motorola droid. Then i see this sign that says "requires data package of 29.99 or higher! I ask the person working and he says ya that the newthing Verizon is doing. They put all their phones into three classes; 3G Smart phones, 3G Multimedia and Feature Phones. phones in the 3G Smartphone category require a $29.99 monthly charge in addition to what you already pay for your plan, 3G multimedia phones require an additional $9.99 charge and feature phones done require an additional charge. The charge allows you to surf the web basically for free with the $29.99 charge, the $9.99  charge gets you a limited amount of data usage.

These charges are mandatory for the first 3 months and after that you have   to cancel the charges and not have to pay them. Personally my bill is 50 a month so if I want the HTC droid eris it will end up costing me $80 per month for as long as i want the access. that's an extra $360 dollars per year...even if i only use it for the 3 months that's an extra 90 bucks, that's almost two normal payments for me...i think this is ridiculous and should be eliminated. Verizon is great but this is stupid. 30 a month isn't cheap, hell, 10 a month isn't cheap. Makes me never want to get a new phone, anybody have any comments to this? or suggestions?

Verizon Wireless Link

This is a questions that really gets me thinking as a college student...bottle or can? When i buy beer i personally but bottles because i think the taste is better and i just feel better having a bottle in my hand as opposed to a can. I figured this would make a good post because I am sure I could get a lot of responses back, because as college students, most of us have had a drink or two before.

Bottle

Pros:

more sophisticated: everyone knows you look more sophisticated drinking beer from a botttle as oposed to a can

better tasting: beer tastes better out of a bottle

design: if its an amber (brown) colored bottle, the bottle allows less light into the beer which keeps the taste of the beer in the bottle and doesn't dilute it

labels: if your a collector, the labels on glass bottles are pretty cool as well as the caps.

Cons:

cost: most of the time bottles are more expensive than cans

size: take up more room and are less convenient

This is what I came up with,  if you want to add pros and cons or switch some from what I have please leave your input so we can spark some conversation....I found some interesting facts on beer when researching..beer id the third most consumed beverage after water and tea and dates back to 3500 B.C.!

according to wiki answers, the top 5 purchased beers in the U.S. are

1. Budweiser
2. Bud light
3. Miller Draft
4. Miller lite
5. Coors

Sales...what is it? Used car dealer, door to door salesman, Jehovah's Witness people, cell phone kiosks in the mall? This is what most people think of when they think of sales. I have to admit i was one of these people before last semester when I took Professional Selling Skills I with Professor Robert Nadeau. At first I took it because I needed some business electives and I thought i t might be fun. I have never been so into a class, everything about sales made me excited. I loved the atmosphere of sales courses mostly because of how we learned. We learned from an experienced Professor (Bob was with Liberty Mutual as a senior executive for 25 years) and he uses all of his experiences and shortcuts to help us become prepared for life after school. We also have the opportunity to meet with representatives of high end companies such as: ADP, EMC, HP, Enterprise, Xerox, Liberty Mutual just to name a few. Every week or so we have reps from companies such as these who come in and speak to us as a class and provide us with the information on how to become successful. Several student sincluding myself have even received job offers or internship offers from these companies.

The skills you learn go way farther than learning how to be good at sales, this course teaches you how to be a professional. We work on resume building, interview skills, learnign the steps of the sales process, learnign hwo to sell and learnign how to be a confident sale sperson. We also have the opportunity to attend the worlds lrgest sales competition, the NCSC (National Collegiate Sales Competition) in Atlanta, GA hosted by Kennesaw State University. Each student submits a sales video of thesm selling a product. The professors then select 10 finalists and the finalists vidoes are sent to the reps from the companies that speak to us in class and they pick the 2 who represent Plymouth State in Atlanta (I was one of the 2 selected for this year). Each school with a sales program sends 2 students to this competition. Out of 4, 358 universities in the United States, under 60 have a llaes program. And among those 60, only 2 have a sales program in New England, UCONN and Plymouth. That alone is something to be proud of being a Plymouth student.

Sales is a career that the majority of college student send up in and you mine as well train for it while in school so you can be more successfull after. I received 6 internship offers from attending the NCSC andthe other student who went with me who was a senior received a job offer making over 65,000 a year his first year. The opportunities are mind boggling and I encourage anyone looking for a sense of direction to take the course. even if it is just to fill an elective, you could end up like i did and loving it.

I encourage you all to speak with Professor Nadeau even if its just to chat, his door is always open to new students and tell him I sent you and I am sure he will be excited to meet you as I have helped him advertise this program.

Professor Bob Nadeau- ranadeau@plymouth.edu

By now I am sure everyone is aware of the newest craze as far as technology goes. It's the Apple iPad. The Apple iPad is basically a laptop, iPod, Kindle, HDTV all rolled into one. Leave it to Apple to always create the newest and best thing out there. And knowing their products and the reputation of them as well as the popularity, this thing should be pretty successful.

The iPad can watch movies and TV, can have pictures on it, can go online as well as view e-mail. The iPad has a "ultra-light" design weighing just 1.5 pounds. It has a 10" touchscreen and is only 1/2 thick. It has a 10 hour battery life and it is wireless.

You can purchase things like docks for the iPad, wireless keyboards etc. iPad is also compatible with all of the Apple features, such as: iTunes, Safari, You Tube, iBooks, Apple App Store, Map features, iWork just to

name a few!

Basically this new Apple product can do it all and has everything to make it a popular tool. The Apple iPad is available in 16, 32 or 64 GB and ranges in price from $499.99 to $699.99 for standard Wi-Fi iPads or $629.99 to $829.99 for the Wi-Fi + 3G network.

If I can come up with the money this may be something I invest in just because of all of the capabilities it has.

For more information on the Apple iPad please visit http://www.apple.com/ipad/